Jury Assesses \"People\'s Destiny\" Documentary Proposals

Directors introduced their documentary projects and answered Juries\' questions at the MIDA Filmmaker Plan presentations yesterday.

The 2013 MIDA Filmmaker Plan set the theme "The Power of Time" and started to collect production proposals last year. It aimed to have directors focusing on the changes in people\'s destiny as well as social and cultural development.

A total of 361 documentary plans were submitted and 17 directors of 15 projects made the competition shortlist. Five will be nominated to receive financial and technical support from the MIDA foundation.

This year\'s Jury panel consisted of renowned documentary makers Liu Jingqi and Wang Ren, director Peng Xiaolian, producer and painter Yan Zheng\'an and writer Sun Ganlu.

Feng Yan was the first to present her project, "Daughters of the River", which took 18 years to film from 1994 to 2012.

She chose to follow four women with different backgrounds and personalities from the 1.13 million people displaced when the Three Gorges Dam was built.

Feng Yan lived with the women for several years in the early phases of the film\'s production.

"You can\'t paraphrase what you feel after actually living with them," Feng said. "It\'s a very complicated feeling knowing what they had to go through."

Sun Yueling\'s documentary stories about Jiuqian tells the story of a group of children leaving the countryside with their parents who chose to work in big cities to earn more money. The children sing in a choir and eventually follow different life paths.

Filmmaker Cui Yi\'s project "The Variation" documents the art of shadow play, a national intangible cultural heritage, in Gansu Province. She followed the artists\' daily life and performances.

"Before I studied film, my major was ecology and I came across many areas with folk art, so I wanted to make films about the traditional art forms," Cui said.

The results of the MIDA Filmmaker Plan will be announced at the MIDA Award Ceremony tonight at UME International Cineplex.